#i'm saying this as a bi/pan myself

[dwobbitfromtheshire]

I wish there were more Steddie fics where they're both bi4bi or bi4pan or pan4pan. Eddie flirted hard with both Chrissy and Steve. Like, I wish there were an equal (yes, EQUAL) amount of Eddie being gay fics as there were him being bisexual or pansexual. The Duffle bags are probably never going to come right out and say that Vickie is bisexual or that Steve is, so they're definitely never going to say that Eddie is. Maybe they will, I don't know. I don't think people realize that it was Joseph Quinn himself who gave us the vibe that Eddie wasn't straight. It wasn't that hanky. It was the phenomenol acting skills that Joseph Quinn portrayed. He had Eddie flirt with both Chrissy and Steve. I was hoping that during Pride Month, I would see more bisexual Eddie fics. I think I just want people to make it known that it's just as important for Eddie to be bi, to recognize his bisexuality or pansexuality, as it is for him to be gay. Maybe it's just me being selfish and wanting to feel better about my own sexuality. I think it's why I stopped writing Steddie fics, I felt like I was alone on an island, especially when people tried to erase Eddie's bisexuality in MY fics. I'm just saying. . .every once in a while. . .throw bisexual Eddie a bone.

[menlove]

me every few years swinging between using bisexual and lesbian bc I thought a middle aged actor was hot

anyway. this is a coming out post. again. lesbian 👍

there will probably be more every few years and at this point that's just my lot in life

[2mimikyute4u]

How many different preparations of brussel sprouts should you need to try before you accept that, while brussel sprouts are generally fine, you simply don't really prefer them??

(This isn't about brussel sprouts btw )

[moonmoonthecrabking]

"chaotic bisexual-" i don't find this particularly encourages me to read the book, actually. i might anyway, because of the concept (and in a partial hope to prove my preconceptions wrong), but i think that a mistake was made somewhere in the marketing stage

[nightmarecountry]

[remembers gai.man's fucking incomprehensible claim that show Corin.thian is pan and sighs with dread for S2]

[dear-nyu]

So I'm a complicated case of gender and sexuality/romantic attraction. I'm fine being percieved as the basic default people usually see me as (cishet woman). So I usually identified myself as "basically straight basically cis"

HERE'S THE THING i had a thing with a mostly-girl individual and well it was very gay so now im kinda sitting here like. Well so I can't exactly say im even remotely straight now. Dafuk fo i call myself.

[nonokoko13]

Why can't people like a celebrity without imagine them as queer? Can't people like Taylor music without go saying she's lesbian/queer when she hasn't said anything about that. Pretty sure if she was attracted to women she would have already said it 🫠

Even in the hypothetical scenario where she was queer indeed pressuring somebody to come out or out them yourself is selfish, stupid, dangerous, toxic and overall fucked up (-᷅_-᷄)

We have so many queer pop icons out of the closet but you need to headcanon your favourite ally/het as lgbt for...comfort reasons? Just because she's your fav? Because you are queer? Dude she's not a fictional character can you not spread false information or discuss real people orientations and just enjoy their content 💀

all goofing aside I genuinely don't understand the urge to reimagine Taylor Allison Swift as a secretly queer icon when the pop music scene(TM) is like. literally overflowing with women who actually like women. Gaga and Kesha and Miley and Halsey are right there. Rina Sawayama and Hayley Kiyoko and Rebecca Black and Kehlani and Victoria Monét and Miya Folick if you're willing to get slightly less top 100. Janelle and Demi for them nonbinary takes on liking girls. like what are we doing here. like I'm not even saying you can't enjoy Taylor but why would you hang all your little gay hopes on her.

[thebibliosphere]

A friend gifted me Gotham Knights on Steam after I expressed a vague interest in it. I believe my exact words were, "The color of the cover art is very cyberpunk bisexual, and I love that for them."

A lot of key smashing ensued, followed by, "No, wait, you have to play it, you have to. Don't ask why. You'll know when you see it."

After spending a substantial few hours with my new dopamine generator, zipping around Gotham as various different heroes, grappling my way across the skyline, and driving my motorbike into walls (sorry, random Gothamites.) I got to the part of the story where Dick Grayson is seen drinking from a bisexual-themed Bludhaven mug (WE WANTS IT, PRECIOUS, WE NEEDS IT), followed by Babs posting a gossip article in the literal batfam group chat (I have no idea when she actually sent it, I keep forgetting to check the chat lmao) where Dick fully leans into being Bruce's son by being the biggest, sluttiest fuckboy imaginable when the male interviewer asks Dick if he has a "type" then describes the way Dick drops his voice to an "intimate purr, his gaze for me and me alone" followed by the most bisexual response ever which can be summarized as "People are gorgeous. All of them. Why restrict myself to an archetype when the world is full of beauty?"

And can I just say, as a slutty, slutty bisexual *chef kiss* love that for him. That and all the nude photoshoot offers he seems to be getting lmao.

Combine that with the interactions where Tim talks to the batfam about his boyfriend, asking for relationship advice (Babs telling Tim she's hopeless with guys, so to ask Dick instead), Dick suggesting Robin and Nightwing should go to Gotham Pride in costume so people know the batman are firmly in camp LGBTQ+ (followed up by an email between Babs and Jayson where they talk about wanting to go to Pride to support Tim so he'll know they're proud of him), the rainbow flags in the living room, and the trans, bi, pan and I think non-binary flag (need to check, might be demisexual) bike color options, I can honestly say I'm having a lot of fun careering round Gotham like the most terrifyingly competent, backflipping, Solo Pride Parade that's ever swung out of the skyline to dropkick a cop into oncoming traffic.

[teaboot]

how are you both bisexual and asexual. are you also both autistic and neurotypical? are you both trans and cis too? please help me out here

okay so first off I don't think you meant this to come off as confrontational, so in the future please do keep in mind that these are highly personal questions. I don't actually owe anyone this information

So, sexual attraction and romantic attraction are different things. Someone who is asexual may desire a romantic relationship with someone, while someone who is aromantic may desire a sexual relationship with someone.

Alternatively, someone who is AroAce may desire strong, intimate connections that have nothing to do with sex OR romance.

So someone who is romantically attracted to all genders but sexually attracted to nobody may be more accurately described as "Biromantic / Panromantic Asexual", but that's a bit of a mouthful and uses terminology and concepts a lot of people don't get so they may just say they're ace and bi.

I've known for a long time that I'm asexual, that one was relatively easy. Romantic attraction, I've found, is harder to evaluate because "deep, intimate friendship" and "romance" have a lot of overlap and are difficult to distinguish.

For a long time, I thought, "I feel the same level of attraction to all genders, so I must be bi or pan". It just so happens that that level of sexual attraction was zero.

(Apparently this is a fairly common experience.)

Also, not entirely what you asked, but recently I've come to the realization that I may be Aromantic as well as Asexual- I may just experience aesthetic attraction to all genders, which is a third thing, in which you can see someone and go "Ohhhhhhh my god you're so fuckin cool and pretty I'm dying" but not actually really wanna do anything about it.

And since I may be aesthetically attracted to all genders, romantically attracted to like 5 people ever, and sexually attracted to nobody, I could go around saying, "Yeah I'm an asexual demiromantic with panaesthetic attraction", confusing half the people I talk to and sounding like a queer zoomer in a conservative political cartoon, I could also just say, "yeah I'm ace and bi" or "I'm queer" and keep the rest to myself.

Also, while I openly use he/him pronouns now and for the last couple years, growing up I thought for about a decade that I was Genderfluid and I'm still pretty attached to the Genderqueer identity, so trans and cis isn't really the reach you may think it is.

So, yeah. Autistic, Asexual, Bi, Trans.

But I've found that my personal identity is less like a business card and more like a witness statement.

Any wordier than you need to be, and you start giving the opposition room to poke holes.

"Queer", though. Queer is good

[juchily]

its a stupid show about cannibalism and women where the women don't have visible body hair and their hair roots and makeup (looking at Nat...) aren't doing how reality realities.

I like the girls and everyone more than anything but they are such horrible people, every last one of them past and present may we please not treat them as pookies who arent responsible it haven't done bad things (doing bad things inst necessarily bad, at anytime a person is going to do a bad thing, that's life, it matters if they own up to it and learn from it and the girls have not...) and I get it, the memes are funny, misty is a poodle sweety cutie pie who's done nothing wrong and totally hasn't drugged a bunch of people, lottie is a sweet deer eyed baby who totally doesn't have self worth issues and problems with self sacrifice, self harm, and totally didn't start the hunting thing as well as saed travis and almost had him murdered

This is still and adult show and no matter who may watch it (I'm in highschool, not even necessarily what some people may consider a young adult), we must treat it with nuance and care as well

PSA to everyone in this fandom before YJ goes on Netflix, season 3 comes out, and we inevitably gain some new people: LET PEOPLE ENJOY THIS SHOW. Let people be shippers, deer Lottie and raccoon Nat people, shitposters, Travis or Misty haters or lovers, deep scholarly analyzers, fanfic and smut writers, gif makers, ETC. People are allowed to have any opinion they want about this show as long as it’s not harmful to other people. If you don’t like it literally all you have to do is ignore it. We don’t all have to agree on everything, that’s what makes it fun. It’s good to have different perspectives, just be nice to each other.

And it’s not that serious, IT’S👏A👏FUCKING👏TV👏SHOW👏

[slicedwholewheatbread]

at what point do you stop ID'ing as pan and instead ID as gay because your sexuality changed and you can no longer stomach the idea of dating anyone other than a man even though years ago you were almost exclusively into women? :/

like. I guess maybe I'm pan and it's just been a while since I was unironically into a woman and not just the passing thought of "oh they're kinda pretty". but like. I realized T changed my sexuality, and when I was off it for a few months it shifted back to how it was, so I recognize it's got a cause. But unless I go off T again (no plans to) I don't see myself as ever really being interested in women again? Like the very idea fills me with dread? and not the same kind of dread I felt as a teenager at possibly dating someone and being someone's "girlfriend" (aka gender dysphoria) but a more, like... I don't know. Like trying to force yourself to eat food you don't like, except it's not like I would get health benefits out of it so there's no point to the suffering lmao.

I just feel kind of weird that I'm 25 and finally thought I'd settled into ID'ing as pan instead of aroace (which tbh was a label chosen more out of gender dysphoria and social anxiety reasons than my actual internal reality) and suddenly saying I'm "gay" (which still feels weird as someone who has gender insecurity issues, like, I'm "a man" but it feels like I'm stepping on toes by calling myself "a gay man" more than a gender-neutral label like pan. but labels like "androsexual" are really off-putting to me personally)

but also the main reason labels exist is communicating your experiences to other people for interaction purposes, and if I have no interest in dating women or anyone fem (or, honestly, even other trans guys bc I have a habit of focusing on anything overtly Trans and making myself dysphoric, which is my own problem I'm trying to work on but it makes the idea of being more than friends with anyone transmasc offputting), there's not much of a point in saying I'm open to that possibility (ID'ing as pan)

[nothorses]

This is a genuine ask and I hope it doesn't come off as rude, obviously people can do whatever they want forever, but what is the logic behind a lesbian dating a transgender man? (By lesbian I mean someone who is only attracted to women), wouldn't that exclude binary trans men then since trans men are men? Or is it like "Trans men can be lesbians because they have vaginas" which just feels like bioessentialism with progressive wording...

I think the core misunderstanding here might be in your use of the word "logic". And there's a super high chance I'm extrapolating more intention than you put into that word choice, but hear me out.

On a super basic level, I think it's important to understand the reasons people use words like "lesbian" and "trans man" in the first place. In certain contexts, it makes sense to assign these terms more rigid definitions: a study would likely have a single, clear definition for those words in order to talk about some research results. An academic essay might need a shared definition if they're talking about broad trends and systemic issues.

But when we're talking about an individual's choice of identity labels- the words they use to describe their own personal experiences and relationship to gender and orientation- it doesn't make as much sense to apply someone else's definition of those words to that individual's use of them. They're trying to describe their own internal world to you; what matters in that conversation is how they understand the words they use, and why they chose them.

Don't get me wrong: common understandings of a word can play a part in that conversation! My understanding of what "gay trans man" means has been shaped almost entirely by other people. I chose those words for myself because of what I think most people will understand them to mean. In twenty years, it's possible that the common understandings of those words could change, and I might use different words to better communicate the same internal experience.

But I also might not. I might decide that my personal connection to those words is more important to me, or even that saying I'm a "gay trans man", as a person 20 years older than I am now, better reflects my internal experience as one that was shaped by the time I came to understand myself in. Maybe it'll be important to me to communicate that I understand myself as a "gay trans man" because of what those words meant 20 years ago. Maybe it'll be important to me to ask tomorrow's queer people to learn about my context, and my story, in order to really understand me.

And maybe, when I fill out a survey for a queer study in 20 years, I'll read the definitions they use for all of these identity labels and categorize myself accordingly, even though I don't personally identify with those definitions or words.

So yeah, I could talk about all the reasons someone might identify as a "lesbian" and still be attracted to trans men. I could talk about trans men who still call themselves "lesbians" because of what the words meant 20 or 40 years ago, or some unique definition they heard in one place and decided they liked enough to keep, even though nobody else has even heard it. I could talk about lesbians whose partners turn out to be trans men, and who still feel attracted to them afterwards; whose partners are okay with, or even feel validated by, their lesbian partners still calling themselves "lesbians". I could talk about nonbinary trans men, and bigender or multigender trans men, who are women and/or lesbians as much as they are trans men. I could talk about bi and pan lesbians, who may find themselves attracted to one trans man or a handful of men- trans and cis both- but otherwise mostly experience attraction to women.

But like, the point shouldn't be to find a good enough reason to justify it. The point isn't the "logic". The point is to understand that everyone's internal experience is fundamentally different from yours, and to be curious about each individual.

It's great that you asked this question in sincerity, but I'm the wrong person to be asking.

When someone says they're a lesbian who's attracted to trans men, they're trying to share something about themselves with you! That is a precious, unique thing you are being entrusted with. Get curious! Ask them what those words mean to them, and take the opportunity to get to know them better. Learn their story! Connect!

I can't tell you that person's story any more than you can guess it on your own, no matter how much you try to logic it out. That's exciting! The world is big, and it's full of unique stories and perspectives you couldn't even dream of inventing! That's so much better than a logic puzzle, don't you think?

[pride-and-parresia]

There was a time when I desperately wanted to be gay or bi or pan or something that I felt I could justify in any way with others. Something that wasn't as "strange" ad being aromantic.

Ofc I couldn't, but I wanted to and now that I'm able to be proud of myself I'm ashamed of it.

And I'm also sad because this says how deep the lack of aro representation and recognition is and how much we still suffer because of it.

WE ARE AS QUEER AS THEY ARE. (Now read it again but shouting ;-) )

~A (pride-and-parresia)

[genderqueerdykes]

when i call myself a lesbian and state that i am not (just) a woman, i am not insisting we must replace the current definition of lesbian, but expand it. when i say i'm a lesbian, i mean that i am attracted to and want to be in community spaces with queer women, yes, but i also want other people to be a part of this space as well, because their experiences are identical or near identical to those that queer women face, and/or they are attracted to those women.

i'm not saying that women who are attracted to women only and not in the wrong for saying that's what they mean by lesbianism means to them. there will be many people with that belief and its fine, but when they start to say that no one else can have their own lesbian experience that doesn't line up with theirs perfectly is when there's an issue. even 2 cisgender lesbians can have wildly different takes on what lesbianism means to them.

many lesbians are butchphobic. many lesbians are biphobic. many lesbians will not date or sleep with a queer woman who has dated and/or slept with men or people with penises. many lesbians reject butches who are also men. many lesbians in general reject trans women and other trans lesbians. that doesn't mean that they are 100% correct about lesbianism on the whole... that's just what they've defined it as, for themselves.

my definition of lesbianism includes all dykes. i'm attracted to people who identify as lesbians, dykes, sapphics,, intersex dykes, lesboys, transfem dykes, trans lesbians, lesbian trans women, boydykes, mtf butches, guydykes, butches, femmes, bi/pan/mspec lesbians, transmasc & ftm dykes, male lesbians, bisexual lesbians, multigender dykes, genderfluid sapphics, non binary dykes anyone who identifies as a lesbian sapphic and or dyke. yes i am also attracted to queer women in general, but i am mostly attracted to other lesbians, sapphics and dykes, because there is a culture that is present in these identities that are unique, which is why these terms exist to begin with. we have a nebulous shared experience that spans across many individual identities.

trans men are treated like butch dykes and lesbians regardless of how they identify. theyre bullied out of womanhood. intersex women and people receive this treatment throughout our lifetimes. transmascs, transfems, trans women and queer women in general get treated this way as well. any woman and/or femme who is even remotely gender non conforming gets hit with dyke and lesbian and butch and all kinds of slurs and insults. a lot of people relate to this experience. we're all judged for the same traits, people don't know our AGABs and our identities. many of us share exact experiences despite totally different individual experiences

lesbianism is broad. it's not narrow. it encompasses many forms of transness, from transmasculinity, transfemininity, transneutrality, bigenderism, multigenderism, two spirit, genderqueer, genderfluid, non binary, gender non conforming and many other identities. it's not simply cis woman loving cis woman. or cis woman loving non binary person, which is even worse- conflating non binary people with being women. this definition of lesbianism could not be more transphobic of it tried.

the rejection of butches who are Too Butch only makes this worse, but we can change this by allowing people who have these experiences to express themselves and engage in lesbian, dyke and sapphic spaces. our community is so vast and varied. we have unique experiences from all over the queer community that intersect with lesbianism and dyke identities. we have to celebrate and include these things and expand what we currently know about lesbianism- not replace anything, but build upon the history that came before us, and the people who are coming out as lesbians, sapphics, and dykes today.

[leidensygdom]

The ways in which being asexual feels isolating

I've been pondering whether to post this or not, but I figured out I wanted to explain a bit of this experience.

So, I could go on a very long tangent on how being asexual is usually a lonely experience, and how much I've been otherized here and there- Specially in real life. How the same people that claimed to be queer (or allies) had been much weirder about my asexuality than they were about me being bi/pan or whatever.

But I think I wanna talk about how something like that bleeds in every aspect of socializing, even down to something like fandom. I stay away from fandom usually- I like to look at cool fanart and that's about it. I hate discourse, I hate drama, I hate reading people getting worked up because they're treating fanon as canon. But there's one thing I've noticed, over and over, that just sends me off my rails.

And it's how fandom tends to treat asexuality (or aromanticism). So, you get a character in some piece of media that explicitly, unequivocally, states they're either ace, aro, or both. "I do not have interest in a partner", "I don't desire to have sex nor do I enjoy the topic", whatever. And as an ace person, I do appreciate being able to see myself in media- There isn't many chases where something is established that bluntly.

Now, you decide you want to check some fanart for that. Fandoms have this tendency to make absolutely everything about shipping, even when the media they're basing it in does not revolve about that (and it's annoying, because a lot of times people aren't interested in the actual themes- It's all reduced to shipping). Suddenly, you notice people treating the aforementioned character as anything but aro or ace. It's all about shipping. "This person interacted with this other person in a way two friends would, but we gotta make this their entire personality now". Some people may instead go for "well, maybe the character is not having sex, but they're probably an absolute freak about it, studies it extensively, has encyclopedic knowledge about it-"

Now, there's of course sex-favourable aces, and that's completely valid, but it's already straying from what, canonically, the character had mentioned. Asexual or aromantic characters aren't really allowed to exist as themselves. People often see them as a blank slate to fill, to change, to fix. I could talk forever about how people react to real life aces like that. I've had people asking me incredibly invasive questions because they saw my lack of sexual attraction as something broken, something they could fix.

And I hate that! I think I'm allowed to say that I hate that! It's hard and unusual for media to cement an aro/ace character, because they're defined by the lack of interest for something, which is often hard to show. But when it does- No one seems to care. It's all shipping, it's all "well, he's gay in denial", "well, she's probably super repressed". If you took a canonically gay character and made them straight on a fanfic, you'd get angry people. Which is bound to happen when you erase representation that people identify with. But aro/ace characters are NOT even seen as queer, they're not even seen as "representation" by most people. You can erase that bit of it, put some god awful shipping on top, and people will applaud you. And it sucks!

I wish people would see being aro or ace as an identity worth respecting, not an identity that needs overwriting. It feels a bit too close to how people often treat aro/aces irl, and it sucks. It reeks of this sort of exclusionism, where "aro/aces are technically queer but it's queer lite at best, it's less interesting than being gay, and we kinda don't want them near us anyhow". Again, I've had far worse experiences about being ace than I have about not being straight.

Sorry if the post got long, but I hope this experience may at least resonate with other people who have been struggling with this, too. It has always felt just kind of lonely to be ace, and see how little people do even consider it an identity, even when it comes down to something like fandom.

[posi-pan]

wayne brady is pansexual!!! 💗💛💙🥳

i’m pansexual. in doing my research, both with myself and just with the world, i couldn’t say if i was bisexual, because i had to really see what that was, especially because i really have not gotten a chance to act on anything. so, i came to pansexual because — and i know that i’m completely messing up the dictionary meaning — but to me, pan means being able to be attracted to anyone who identifies as gay, straight, bi, transsexual or non-binary. being able to be attracted across the board. and, i think, at least for me for right now, that is the proper place. i took pan to mean that not only can i be attracted to any of these people or types physically, but i could be attracted to the person that is there. i’ve dealt with the shame. a shame cake, just eating it every single day — and then worried about… people finding out. i’ve always had a wonderful community of friends who are in the lgbtq+ community, people that i’ve grown up with in shows, gays and lesbians, and, later in life, my trans relatives and my niece. i’ve always had that community, but i've always felt like a sham because i wasn’t being forthcoming with myself. i could speak out about black issues because i can’t hide that. and you can play at being an ally, but until the day that you can truly say, “this is who i am, and i wanna stand next to you,” that's not… i always wanted that day to come. i’ve told myself in the past, also, nobody needs to know my personal business. the world can absolutely go without knowing that wayne identifies as pan. but that gave me license to still live in the shadows and to be secretive. what does that feel like to actually not be shameful, to not feel like, “oh, i can’t be part of this conversation because i’m lying?” i had to break that behavior. i’m now trying to be the most wayne brady i can be. i don’t know about most, actually. i’m still coming together. but if i’m healthy, then i can go onstage at let’s make a deal and be the best wayne brady that everybody wants and expects. i can be the best dad that maile needs. i can be the best friend to mandie, the best son to my mother, and one day, the best partner to someone, because i’m doing this for me. not dating yet though! [laughs] i am single, but it’s not about being with someone right now. i’ve got some work to do still. then, wayne as a single, open-minded pansexual can make a decision and be free and open to other people.

i included more quotes from the article than just strictly pan related because it’s quite touching. good for him!!!! 🌈👏🥰